UNL business student launches NIL adviser program to help Husker athletes market themselves

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – It is a job that has eaten College of Nebraska-Lincoln junior business enterprise big Jake Bowman for much of the earlier yr: helping Husker athletes capitalize on new title, impression and likeness policies.

“We’re just hoping to assist as a lot of athletes as we can fully grasp their NIL possible,” Bowman stated.

In 2021, NCAA rule modifications authorized college or university athletes to make revenue off of their title, image and likeness for the initially time.

“Honestly, I consider this is something that ought to have been here for a lengthy time,” Nebraska sprinter Chris Ramsey mentioned. “But I’m thankful we have it now.”

An athlete in his significant college decades at Lincoln Christian, Bowman has extended desired to perform in sports.

Early this school year, Bowman states, he was approached by Joe Petsick, an government in residence at UNL’s School of Small business, about launching an NIL advisory system to aid Husker athletes improve marketing prospects.

Bowman teamed up with fellow UNL pupils DJ Pfeifer, Cooper Allen, Paige Brandenburg and Claire Neemann to kind the NIL Advisor software.

Every single Thursday, advisers set up a table at Memorial Stadium to support Husker athletes and respond to any NIL-linked questions they may have.

“Our biggest work is producing NIL as simple as we can for them,” Bowman reported. “And so which is form of what we use as our lens for everything we’re performing.”

Brant Banking institutions is an offensive lineman for the Huskers who just lately launched a radio show on 93.7 FM termed “Sunday Early morning Pancakes” with teammate Nouredin Nouili.

Banks mentioned Bowman and the NIL adviser group have been a substantial asset to him.

“They’ve been aiding me reach out to various firms and conversing to them about possibly sponsoring me for the present,” Banking institutions said. “They’re doing this out of the kindness of their coronary heart, and I’ll just take all the assist I can get.”

A single particular obstacle NIL advisers enable athletes do the job by way of is how to build their brand names with no obtaining in problems with the university.

For each university procedures, Husker athletes are not capable to don the Nebraska lettermark in sponsored adverts.

But Bowman reported there are techniques that Huskers can manufacturer themselves as athletes without having violating university policies.

“When you are doing your social media posts that aren’t sponsored posts, put on your Husker stuff,” Bowman mentioned. “That will increase your subsequent, and which is what providers want.”

“Once you put a sponsored put up in, it appears natural, and it helps the organizations out and would make your value greater,” he said.

Bowman explained he and his brother Caleb have launched a business called Signature NIL, intended to assistance athletes market place by themselves, acquire written content and offer goods.

Ramsey, who has over 100,000 followers on TikTok, not too long ago teamed up with Bowman, launching his very own line of goods as very well as the “Timeless Talks” podcast with teammate Niko Schultz.

“A lot of folks glimpse up to us as athletes, a lot of individuals like observing not only what we do on the discipline and in the pool on the monitor, but also our day-to-working day lives, and this presents us an option to present them who we are as a human being,” Ramsey claimed.

“We’re just hoping to assist perform with as a lot of athletes as we can, create some actually exciting content that’s entertaining for lovers to watch, in which they feel like they’re connecting with these athletes that they see on Television on a far more personalized degree,” Bowman stated.